University of Virginia Library

Past Bastion

In his letter of Oct. 9 Mr. Pete
Kempson of the House of Theta
Chi, 1970, attacks my comments
on rush, arguing that they arise
solely from the "... currently
fashionable 'get-with-it-ness'..."
of downgrading fraternities. It
always amazes me the way a fratman
can rationalize attacks on his
hollowed system as being merely
the "current fashion". They seem
to feel that if fraternities can
weather the storm of protest for a
while the good old days of "beer
swilling bigotry" will return.

Be that as it may, fraternities
seem unwilling to change the most
blatant area of short coming, that
obsolete event known as rush.
While on the one hand fraternities
claim that they have gotten in step
with the times, that they are capable
of more than just a social
contribution to the university and
the community, and that they are
willing to help confront the many
problems now plaguing all of
academia, rush stalwartly remains
as five weeks of parties, smokers,
dinners, and torture, a bastion of
the past, stubbornly unwilling to
respond to the needs of the present.

Regardless of what fratmen
would like you to believe, rush is
basically composed of social activities.
I don't mean to say that there
should be no social functions, but
certainly parties and such tend to
completely obscure those areas of
fraternity life that warrant close
scouting by prospective pledges. If
fraternities are purely social groups
then they should stop claiming to
be otherwise and accordingly
accept the criticism of that narrow
scope.

If fraternity life entails so much
more as its proponents now claim,
then rush should be restructured to
exhibit specifically how fraternities
are facing up to the problems of the
university today. In either case fratmen
should quit deluding themselves
that attacks on their sacred
cow are merely an outgrowth of
fashion. And as for Mr. Kempson, I
was pleased to note that as an
undergraduate he condescended to
having a "good many" friends who
weren't in fraternities. Now that's
real progress!